Attraction

 WordCrafter word list: Property/ Bizarre / Mercury / Melancholy / Indigo / Light / Languish / Purity / Thirst

Purity may be found

secreted behind that borrowed rib

a little southwest of the heart.

It uses serrated light

from the #39 bus,

its lit numbers visible only to those bleeding.

Mercury stepped on your kindness

and pawned his pride

for three dollars and a rolled bandage.

Melancholy Jane saw it all,

handed the driver a bible

full of indigo blues and lighter fluid,

Said, "Home, James,"

in your voice she had recorded under her tongue

like a password.

I hid purity in my messenger bag,

an inherited property, a ball and chain

made from beer tabs and lipstick.

All I want now is to languish famously,

pull poems out of top hats

and remember the bizarre attraction

you keep by the roadside

for marks and suckers

you turn to perfection on the wheel of your kiss.

_______

Mermaids

Mermaids sing but do not stay

and I have always been partial to them,

perhaps because they do not stay.

I take to sea in a skin of metal and wood

to look for mermaids diving, vanishing.

I throw my heart over like an anchor,

heavy odd thing, inflexible,

not the sort that mermaids love at all.

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written during the Wordcrafters on line meeting.